The Armour Archive

Just to add to what Randal said, depictions from Germany regarding "The Ages of Man and Woman" depict the married householder with both his military gear prominently displayed, as well as his crafts tools, implying clearly a fellow of 30-ish, due to average ages of marriage, and entries into mysteries as masters.

As a society, Medieval Europeans were a tougher lot than their descendants on either side of the pond, the soft and the weak did not survive. It should not surprise us to see men into their 50's undertaking military service (as indeed, the infamous example of the bowman with the badly scarred face from the Towton grave pit). There was no retirement to speak of, if your profession was arms, you 'soldierd on' until you were physically incapable or dead - there was no mandated physical challenge, and in point of fact, it was tougher to fill ranks than the phenomenon we now see of huge modern armies being sporadically 'downsized' by fairly arbitrary standards (the "fat-boy" program, or failing to be promoted to the next NCO rank).

The unfit died on campaign - some were old, some were young, and some were just unlucky, rather than unfit. We have documented examples in some instances of septegenarians as being active soldiers.

My favorite is when a man in his 70s or 80s shows up to Richard II's array and the arrayers are not sure what they should do.

RPM

Interesting discussions going on. Thanks!

16th c German woodcuts show a lot of obviously older soldiers. This was an age where the economy was hurting and a lot of tradesmen changed to professional soldier. I think it was in Magdalena and Balthazar, by Steven Ozment, letters between a couple in the mid 16thc, he mentions that it was not uncommon for both men and women to marry after age 25, quite different from most assumptions.

The letters also indicate how often people just died of things we would not even consider dying from today - worms, bladder infections, etc.

But in general, a 'tradesman' or even a housewife from any time before 1900, was typically in much better physical condition than the equivalent today just from common necessities of walking everywhere and hauling water, and lack of modern appliances.

Sure people were tough and hard working just like say the people in the time of the US civil war. But if you have ever known lots of people that worked really hard there entire life you know the toll it takes on them. For example my father was a brick layer growing up. And I watched what laying brick every day did to him and his friends. Many started working on brick crews when they were 16 or even younger in some cases. This resulted in middle aged men being complety broken down with terrible back problems etc. And medical studies show this around the world in the same trade. And the same thing is true for many related hard physical occupations. When you get into your late 30s your body just cant take it any more. You can also see this in sports by the way. And the people in the middle ages had the same basic bodies and the same basic aging.

Now that does not mean there were not being soldiers past there late 30s. Or for that matter brick layers. But you have to subtract the people that are so broken down they could not do it at all. And the people that died as mentioned from things like infections. And even the people that were still in pretty good health would have limitations. A knight that was 49 just does not have the same endurance normaly as a 20 year old. Nor does his body recover as fast from strenuous exertion. You can really see this looking at the NFL. These people are tough and hard working and have been their entire life. And they are play as long as they can help the teams win. And you can see in there late 30s there bodies start to change. They tend to loose a step. They cant recover as fast from injury etc. And even the quarterbacks whoes speed does not matter start to become less effective even if they can still throw hard. They just cant take the punishment and recovery enough for the next game. http://www.profootballhof.com/history/s ... _club.aspx

Any way all this being said I have no problem at all with armies in the middle ages tending to skew older. But I think there are many reasons not to over do the idea and push it to an extreme.

sulla123 wrote:Sure people were tough and hard working just like say the people in the time of the US civil war. But if you have ever known lots of people that worked really hard there entire life you know the toll it takes on them. For example my father was a brick layer growing up. And I watched what laying brick every day did to him and his friends. Many started working on brick crews when they were 16 or even younger in some cases. This resulted in middle aged men being complety broken down with terrible back problems etc. And medical studies show this around the world in the same trade. And the same thing is true for many related hard physical occupations. When you get into your late 30s your body just cant take it any more. You can also see this in sports by the way. And the people in the middle ages had the same basic bodies and the same basic aging.

Sulla, do you have any idea about how often laborers actually worked in the medieval period? How many days a year a brick layer, or a mason of any sort, or a farmer would have worked per year? Comparing medieval workers to modern workers is apples to oranges. Even if men were performing comparable roles in the work environment, the basis and consistency of their work could vary wildly. What on earth does your father's brick laying have to do with *anything* that you can comprehend about a medieval brick layer?

Now that does not mean there were not being soldiers past there late 30s. Or for that matter brick layers. But you have to subtract the people that are so broken down they could not do it at all. And the people that died as mentioned from things like infections. And even the people that were still in pretty good health would have limitations. A knight that was 49 just does not have the same endurance normaly as a 20 year old. Nor does his body recover as fast from strenuous exertion. You can really see this looking at the NFL. These people are tough and hard working and have been their entire life. And they are play as long as they can help the teams win. And you can see in there late 30s there bodies start to change. They tend to loose a step. They cant recover as fast from injury etc. And even the quarterbacks whoes speed does not matter start to become less effective even if they can still throw hard. They just cant take the punishment and recovery enough for the next game. http://www.profootballhof.com/history/s ... _club.aspx

How do you know about the endurance of a medieval man who is 49 versus a 20 year old? To take your very own modern example, my father is a 54 year old mechanic who repairs heavy farm equipment for a living. He can work twice as long as I can doing much more tedious and physically strenuous work than I can, at the age of 23, even after I've been trained to do so. His body and mind are incredibly used to the labor that he does, he can can run circles around me. What difference is there between me and him now, and a 50 year old and 20 year old knight 700 years ago? Experience counts for a *whole lot* in the world, and people's strength and efficiency relies upon it greatly. Age may hardly make a difference... The experiences of medieval people can vary considerably from our modern perspectives, but even with modernity in mind, curve balls based on individual circumstances make it impossible to sustain arguments based on "what ifs" and "I've seen this" or that. Nonsense. You have to read the sources and interpret them without interference of modern objectivity. That's the bottom line.

Me and my dad. Your and your experiences... Whatever. We're not medieval people. We eat differently, we act differently and we live differently altogether. There is no comparison. Suggesting perspective based on modern perception has time and time again fallen short of being adequate evidence for historians and archaeologists of all sorts, and provides a discernibly tainted view of history when done so. It is best to stay away from such notions, and to stick to the facts as they have come down to us. As human as their society is, they lived in a different world and different physical and mental ideals ruled them. Drawing similarities to prove points is futile.

-Gerhard

Weren't campaigns more often held from spring to autumn (after planting, back by harvest)? (40 -45 days of 'riding' owed to their lord?) Then in the fall/winter/early spring, Knights could keep themselves in practice/shape in tournaments , hunting, and dancing even. (lots of tournaments described in the book on Christmas festivities)

Sulla, do you have any idea about how often laborers actually worked in the medieval period? How many days a year a brick layer, or a mason of any sort, or a farmer would have worked per year? Comparing medieval workers to modern workers is apples to oranges. Even if men were performing comparable roles in the work environment, the basis and consistency of their work could vary wildly. What on earth does your father's brick laying have to do with *anything* that you can comprehend about a medieval brick layer?

Clearly what it has to do with the subject is the tole hard labor of any kind takes on the human body. That is why in the first part of my post I said "But if you have ever known lots of people that worked really hard there entire life you know the toll it takes on them. " . The brick layers were an example. But it is in no way a unique example or one that is some how limited to modern times.

How do you know about the endurance of a medieval man who is 49 versus a 20 year old?

Medieval man was not magic. His body behaved exactly as ours does. The same factors like diet, genetics, desease, exercise all play exactly the same part. These things we do not have to guess about.

my father is a 54 year old mechanic who repairs heavy farm equipment for a living. He can work twice as long as I can doing much more tedious and physically strenuous work than I can, at the age of 23, even after I've been trained to do so. His body and mind are incredibly used to the labor that he does, he can can run circles around me. What difference is there between me and him now, and a 50 year old and 20 year old knight 700 years ago?

And I know brick layers still working in there 60s. But we have studies and data that show the incredible toll hard physical labor takes on people. This is not assumptions or guess work. And you comparing yourself to your father makes no difference in the data. Or the facts about how the body ages.

Experience counts for a *whole lot* in the world, and people's strength and efficiency relies upon it greatly. Age may hardly make a difference...

Age does make a huge difference. While our experience and skill is very important. Bodies age in clearly defined ways.

The experiences of medieval people can vary considerably from our modern perspectives, but even with modernity in mind, curve balls based on individual circumstances make it impossible to sustain arguments based on "what ifs" and "I've seen this" or that. Nonsense. You have to read the sources and interpret them without interference of modern objectivity. That's the bottom line.

You are confusing some example I made with the science and studies mentioned. The key fact is people in the middle ages were not special. There bodies ages exactly as ours age and other people in history. For example at about 20 your forced vital lung capacity (total volume of air that can be voluntarily moved in one breath, from full inspiration to maximum expiration) starts to go down because of age. For modern sedentary people this is more pronounced. But even in people taking very good care of themselves this is still true. And while today we have to deal with polution wood smoke is also terrible for the lungs. http://www.ehhi.org/woodsmoke/health_effects.shtml . So it is not clear that polution today would be any worse than life long exposure to wood smoke.

The heart has the same kind of decline even if you take are of it. " 40 percent of deaths for people aged 65 to 74 are from heart disease (60 percent for those over 80).
From age 20 to 80, there is a 50 percent decline in the body's capacity for vigorous exercise
In your 20s the maximum heart is between 180 and 200 beats per minute. At 80, it is 145.
A 20-year-old's heart can output 3.5 to 4 times the heart's resting capacity. An 80-year-old can output 2 times resting capacity. " http://longevity.about.com/od/researcha ... artage.htm

And bonemass also starts going down after age 35.

Muscles are effected by age the same way. Up until our 30s muslce buildup and breakdown is balanced. Then some time in our 30s muslce breakdown is higher. So you have the effect of muscles being harder to build and keep. Working at it helps but does not offset the basic problem so we start to loose strength over time.

So I am just saying we can not ignore the basic science on how the body ages. And we can see the science born out in modern sports, modern workers, workers and soldiers from the 20th century, 19th century, 18th century etc etc. And we can use these basic facts to help inform us about people in the middle ages.

You're taking way too much of our modern notions of body capability for granted, Sulla. The Roman legions, often hovering about half a million men strong and stretched across the far borders of Europe, North African and the Near East, were composed of men who were in service from the moment they joined... A minimum age hovering around 20, until they were 60. No retirement until the age of 60. That's forty years straight living on the edge of wilderness, digging encampments, drilling, being on guard duty, skirmishing and battling. No way out except death.

That was the standard of living for all soldiers in Europe under the Roman sphere for centuries. Forty years of service. No vacations, no relaxation or climbing up the ranks except for the most worthy of souls - men at 60 could be at the bottom of the ranks just as easily as those at 20 if that was considered just. Until 210 CE or so they couldn't even get married, and lived together in barracks. How do any of our notions of modern science about body strength, muscle development, or any similar ideas weight at all upon such a period of history and the expectations of men?

They don't.

It doesn't matter if a 20 year old man is more fit than a 60 year old man. 1,000 years ago, no one even considered such facts a consideration, if they even believed them to be true! It's moot.

-Gerhard

I have read a lot about the Roman legions. And it is not exactly like you make out. The average age of joining was 18 and 23 years of age. But with the Praetorian Guard guard I think going up to 32. But the Praetorian Guard only had to serve 16 years I believe. But the Praetorian Guard tended to have an easier life. So the recruit age makes sense. But boys as young as 14 could join and were in the army. How rare this was depending on exactly the time period. Also they did have repeated legislation against recruitment below the legal age at different times. And other records show young people serving and talking about recruiting them. But it really does very over time. Also the service range tended to be 25-26 years putting them in exactly the age range (40s) when there bodies start to really go down hill. And that was the later longer service range. Early on it was 6 years then 10 then 16 then dropped again then went up again to 20. Of course there were exceptions to these things in time of great need when older recruits and people would stay in longer. And they would some times call up retired soldiers. But average fighting age lines up very well with what we know about the human body. And it also lines up well with most other armies in history.

But your right in that early on soldiers served till could be called up until 60 but there was not a standing army. And back then the age range was all mails 16-60 in army. And it is very interesting that the devided them up by age. Those under 47 served in the field. While those over 47 were used for garrison duty. Notice again how this fits exactly with what we know about the human body.

So clearly the evidence does point to them seeing what was in front of there eyes. That is the natural changes to the human body.

Here is another thing related to what we can observe from modern life. Evidence suggests gladiators mostly in the 20-30 age range. For example this dig of 68 graves where all but two bodies were 20-30. One was that was not was a female slave and one was an older man in his 40s. And it is just as likely he was a trainer. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=ca ... jIksaE0tEA And also written records tend to back this up. And its not that they all died early. The better ones would survive and become trainers etc when past their prime. And of course this matches with science and can be seen in modern boxers. Boxers tend to be in there prime in there 20s. Then right around 30 their become a little slower. And that speed in enough decide the outcome in close match. Matter of fact many times the loss in reflexes and speed seem to happen almost overnight and be startling. And the example like George Foreman of older fighters does not change this. They are are and tend to be in weight classes where speed does not matter as much. Your punching power is one of the last things to go.

There is a danger of over romanticising the past.

People were subject to the same kind of body decays that we have; arthritis, piles, gall stones, contagions of one sort or another, tooth decay, badly set breaks etc.

People may have appeared more hardy, or perhaps they were simply getting on with things the best they could.

There is a whining tract somewhere in the early 16th or late 15th c decrying the use of chimneys in houses because they 'softened' people and made them less hardy.

To get a good idea of what people tended to die of read Barbara Hanawalt's the Ties that Bound. She uses coroner reports to give an idea of the activities people were up to. For example, drowning was common for young kids, farming accidents for older men, house fires were not exactly rare, injury and death caused by drunkenness, accidental stabbings during games, accidental shootings with bows. None of which were war related, just simply day to day. Child mortality was very high as was death during or shortly after childbirth, that does not suggest they were hardier, simply that we are now more able to treat basic illnesses better. They did not grieve any less that we do, simply that death was always much closer to hand.

The wealth of medical treatises and remedies would suggest that the medievals were just as conscious of their human frailty as we are, they were certainly not supermen. There were fat burghers who never picked up a sword or a plough.

We tend to leave the business of death to the hospitals rather than the families. My Portuguese grandfather died in his home village and his body was washed and dressed by his niece (my mum was int he UK when he died), something that would almost never happen in town or in the UK.


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"Sulla, do you have any idea about how often laborers actually worked in the medieval period? How many days a year a brick layer, or a mason of any sort, or a farmer would have worked per year?"


Fewer than today I imagine with the range of theoretical and actual holy days, plus weather and daylight being more influential factors in trades.

sulla123 wrote:I have read a lot about the Roman legions. And it is not exactly like you make out. The average age of joining was 18 and 23 years of age. But with the Praetorian Guard guard I think going up to 32. But the Praetorian Guard only had to serve 16 years I believe. But the Praetorian Guard tended to have an easier life. So the recruit age makes sense. But boys as young as 14 could join and were in the army. How rare this was depending on exactly the time period. Also they did have repeated legislation against recruitment below the legal age at different times. And other records show young people serving and talking about recruiting them. But it really does very over time. Also the service range tended to be 25-26 years putting them in exactly the age range (40s) when there bodies start to really go down hill. And that was the later longer service range. Early on it was 6 years then 10 then 16 then dropped again then went up again to 20. Of course there were exceptions to these things in time of great need when older recruits and people would stay in longer. And they would some times call up retired soldiers. But average fighting age lines up very well with what we know about the human body. And it also lines up well with most other armies in history.

But your right in that early on soldiers served till could be called up until 60 but there was not a standing army. And back then the age range was all mails 16-60 in army. And it is very interesting that the devided them up by age. Those under 47 served in the field. While those over 47 were used for garrison duty. Notice again how this fits exactly with what we know about the human body.

So clearly the evidence does point to them seeing what was in front of there eyes. That is the natural changes to the human body.

So basically you are stating that you aren't really willing to look at the actual evidence for the specific era, but insist on sticking to notions of the modern army, and Roman armies. At least that is what I am getting from you in regards to the subject.

earnest carruthers wrote:There is a danger of over romanticising the past.

People were subject to the same kind of body decays that we have; arthritis, piles, gall stones, contagions of one sort or another, tooth decay, badly set breaks etc.

People may have appeared more hardy, or perhaps they were simply getting on with things the best they could.

There is a whining tract somewhere in the early 16th or late 15th c decrying the use of chimneys in houses because they 'softened' people and made them less hardy.

To get a good idea of what people tended to die of read Barbara Hanawalt's the Ties that Bound. She uses coroner reports to give an idea of the activities people were up to. For example, drowning was common for young kids, farming accidents for older men, house fires were not exactly rare, injury and death caused by drunkenness, accidental stabbings during games, accidental shootings with bows. None of which were war related, just simply day to day. Child mortality was very high as was death during or shortly after childbirth, that does not suggest they were hardier, simply that we are now more able to treat basic illnesses better. They did not grieve any less that we do, simply that death was always much closer to hand.

The wealth of medical treatises and remedies would suggest that the medievals were just as conscious of their human frailty as we are, they were certainly not supermen. There were fat burghers who never picked up a sword or a plough.

We tend to leave the business of death to the hospitals rather than the families. My Portuguese grandfather died in his home village and his body was washed and dressed by his niece (my mum was int he UK when he died), something that would almost never happen in town or in the UK.


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"Sulla, do you have any idea about how often laborers actually worked in the medieval period? How many days a year a brick layer, or a mason of any sort, or a farmer would have worked per year?"


Fewer than today I imagine with the range of theoretical and actual holy days, plus weather and daylight being more influential factors in trades.

True enough Jorge. That said, Medieval and early modern armies (right up to the mid 19th century) were much more a cross section of the society they sprang from, than Sulla is willing to entertain the notions of.

Going to just combine answers in one post if that is OK guys. Sorry hit reply to fast. I will edit this post with answers here in a sec.

Fewer than today I imagine with the range of theoretical and actual holy days, plus weather and daylight being more influential factors in trades.

I dont think there is any way possible they can have done less hard labor as farmers etc than the same occupations today. For example today many farmers do not cut wood for there own heating. And if they do they use a chain saw. I personaly use a lot of wood. And I have cut it with a chainsaw, axe, and big two man cross cut saw. And also used tractors to knock over trees and move them etc. If all of your heating is done with wood the time of doing it the old ways takes up a lot fo time. Same thing with plowing with animals instead of a tractor. Same thing making many of your own clothes. Or not being able to go buy barbwire fencing or fence panels etc. Not to mention gathering hay. Just the change from square bales to large round bales have saved people a lot of time and hard work. People would have been busy in those days. And the historic record from that times and other times backs that up. Not that they didnt have any free time. But of course they would have had some free times just not like today.

So basically you are stating that you aren't really willing to look at the actual evidence for the specific era, but insist on sticking to notions of the modern army, and Roman armies. At least that is what I am getting from you in regards to the subject.

Nope that is not what I said at all.

True enough Jorge. That said, Medieval and early modern armies (right up to the mid 19th century) were much more a cross section of the society they sprang from, than Sulla is willing to entertain the notions of.

Again not at all. I have time and again said it was a wide cross section and shown examples. BUT I believe the idea that to large a number of soldiers were men over 45 or so is wrong. There is just not good evidence for this. Was the average age older than modern armies yes there is good evidence for that. Were there extremes in age on both ends yes. But the there is also strong evidence the font line knights were more in the sweet spot of 20-45. And this age range would vary a lot depending on the battle and country and time etc. None of thise stuff even seems like a big deal to be honest. I have no agenda. But I have seen no proof or even strong arguments to shift the age range higher. I mean even if 20% of the knights were 45-100 and 10% under 20. The bulk of your army ist still in that sweet spot of experience and physical performance of 20-45 or 18-45.

Interesting discussion.
I looked into this a bit for my book _Soldiers' Lives through History: The Middle Ages_, and here's what I came up with:

When French or English kings called up the arrière-ban—the full mobilization of military manpower for national defense, based on sovereign rather than feudal or contractual authority—the summons was generally directed at all those 16-60, but there are many examples of younger boys or older greybeards campaigning. [83] In the modern West, and especially in America, we have become accustomed to the idea of soldiering as mainly the occupation of very young men (and now women), mainly in the 18-22 range. Across the Middle Ages, the attitude towards “military age” seems to have been quite different. Although it was common to take up arms as early as 15 (and sometimes younger, especially among the higher elite), it was more typically only around the age of 20 or 21 that one was considered fully of mature fighting age, and, as among the ancient Greeks, a warrior’s prime was thought to come much later, somewhere around 35. [84] In the fifteenth-century Petit Jean de Saintré, for example, when the protagonist undertakes his first “deed of arms” at the age of twenty or twenty-one, it is repeatedly and heavily stressed that he is “yet but a child in years,” and his opponent, old enough to be his father, is dismayed by the mismatch, not because he thinks Petit Jean’s youthful vigor will be an unfair advantage, but because he thinks he cannot gain much credit for defeating someone of so little experience, only “an apprentice to arms.”[85] And Díez de Games notes with approval the advice supposedly given by Aristotle to Alexander: “when you are ready to raise your army, you should not leave behind the old in order to take along the young: the old give sound counsel, which is valuable in a fight, and once they have taken their position on the battlefield, they will not allow themselves to be forced from it.” [86].

Notes:
[83]: 16-60: E.g. Wars of Edward III, 118; PRO C47/2/60 mm. 34-41 (England); O’Cléirigh, 186 (Anglo-Irish); similarly Winkler, Swiss and War 105 (Switzerland); 16-65 on Malta (Theresa M. Vann, “The Militia of Malta,” JMMH 2 [2004], 144); 15 (or 16)-59 on Sicily (Muntaner, Chronicle [In Par. ed.], 117); 15-60 in Reims’ watch (Michael [C.] Jones, "War and Fourteenth-Century France," in Anne Curry and Michael Hughes, eds. Arms, Armies and Fortifications in the Hundred Years War [Woodbridge: Bodyell Press, 1994], 117); 18-60 at Gisors and in Midi urban militias generally (Delachenal, Hist. Charles V, 185 n. 1; Noël, Town Defence, 102), etc. In the Liberties conceded to Barcelona in 1283, service was required up to age 70. (Text cited in Du Cange, s.v. hostis, p. 246, col. 2.) The “hoar-headed” leader in battle is a staple of medieval literature (e.g. in The Battle of Maldon; note also what appear to be several graybeards among the Anglo-Saxons depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry) and supported by many documented instances of men campaigning into their sixties and later (e.g. William the Marshal at Lincoln in 1217, and Talbot at Castillon in 1453).
[84]: In the Early Medieval period, “it seems that the age at which a boy was expected to begin to perform military service was about fifteen. Yet, in the furnished cemeteries of the period, the age around twenty was symbolised by the acquisition either of new and more numerous types of weaponry or, in some areas, of weaponry of any kind.” Halsall, Warfare, 35 (and more generally 33-36). In the late 14th century, similarly, “fourteen or fifteen was a very common age for first arming, and it was not exceptional to be armed even younger: but…there were a good many who did not see service until their twenties." Maurice H. Keen, "English military experience and the court of chivalry: the case of Grey v. Hastings." in Philippe Contamine, et al. (eds.), Guerre et société en France, en Angleterre et en Bourgogne. XIVe-XVe Siècle. (Lille: Centre d'histoire de la region du nord et de l'Europe du nord-ouest, 1991), 131; also Prestwich, Armies, 54-5. The Black Prince fought at Crécy at 16, but at the same age Raymond of Toulouse (a hundred and forty-three years earlier) was considered “unfitted for fighting because of his age.” Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay, History of the Albigensian Crusade, tr. W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1998), 332. In Spanish urban charters, the minimum age for mandatory military service ranged from 13 to 20. Powers, Society Organized for War, 122-3. Anna Comnena (Alexiad, 326) describes elite young soldiers “full [of] physical vigour, with beards scarcely grown”—but then emphasizes their skill with bow and thrown spear, rather than in the line of battle. Diez de Gamez considered that Pero Niño, who first received arms and engaged in combat at around 15 (which was early, due to circumstances) was a “youth” until 25, “the age of manhood.” Unconquered Knight (In Par. ed.), 13, 21. Wace describes Emperor Lucius as in the flower of his age at “more than thirty, but less than forty” which matches Froissart’s opinion that Edward III was “in the flower of his youth” in 1346, at 33, and likewise the Black Prince was “in the prime [droite] flower of his youth” when he invaded Castile, at the age of 36. Wace, The ‘Arthurian’ Portion of the Roman de Brut, tr. Eugene Mason (Cambridge, Ontario: In Parentheses Publications, 1999), online at http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/Arthurian.html, p. 105; Froissart, Oeuvres, 4:381; Froissart, Chronique (ed. Sanderson), 324.
[85]: de la Sale, Little John of Saintré, 107, 109, 116, 123, 124, 136-7; note also James, Book of Deeds, 101; Diaz de Gamez, Unconquered Knight (In Par. ed.), 14-15 (when Pero Niño was about 18, and had a household and men under him, but gave such blows that those who fought him “thought they had to do not with a youth, but with a man robust and grown.”)
[86]:Gutierre Diaz de Gamez, El Victorial; crónica de don Pero Niño, conde de Buelna, ed. Juan de Mata Carriazo (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1940), 14 (omitted from the English translation). Note also Las Siete Partidas, tr. Samuel Parsons Scott, ed. Robert I. Burns (Philadelphia: Philadelphia University Press, 2001), II.19.3 (wise old men are “most necessary” in an army), and Maurice, Strategikon, 29 (squads should mix strong young men with steady old ones.)

Thanks for the extra information Cliff